ACCIDENTS

10 years ago

Stealth Fighter Jet Crashes

Bad news out of California: An F-22A fighter jet has crashed during a test mission, and the pilot David Cooley, the only person on board, was killed. It’s the first such accident since the newest stealth aircraft became fully operational in 2007, Bloomberg reports. The US Air Force says the plane took off from Edwards Air Force Base and crashed 35 miles east at 10 a.m. PST. Conceived in the early 1980s as a radar-evading, advanced dogfighter to take on Soviet jets and late recast to engage ground targets, the F-22 is the most expensive aircraft in US history, at $354 million each. The Air Force is slated to buy 183 Raptors, and President Obama will decide by next month whether to put in an order for more.